If there’s one thing about guidebooks that I dislike, it’s that the maps are usually really
really bad. If you want a topo or a decent trail map, you almost inevitably have to drop by your nearby REI or EMS
or mountain store. Well, no longer. Now with a site called Trails.com, you can
subscribe and have access to what the site purports is 30,000 trail descriptions and topo maps. Of course, less and
less on the Web can be had for free these days, and many will find the $49.95 annual fee steeper than the Hillary
step. In fact, I think it’s about $20 too much. But if you climb and hike a lot and are also fed up with the lousy
quality of maps available in most books, it might be worth it. .